AOF Activities & Events

Note: Doors open at noon. Program begins at 1:00 p.m.

Kids abhor a vacuum. Leave a gap in their lives and they will fill it. Here's an educated baby boomer who set out to explore religion with free choice and scant childhood indoctrination. She became clergy in the USA’s fastest-growing religious movement of the late twentieth century, Wicca, aka “Neo-Paganism.”

A push-back at Christianity, Wicca was introduced in 1954 by Gerald Gardner, retired British civil servant, and had roots in the "Ceremonial Magick" of Aleister Crowley (the links are worth a few clicks). High on the heady atmosphere of the 1960's counter-culture, rebelling against the dogma and perceived suffocating stranglehold of their parents' faiths, young seekers seized on it, believing a return of the "old religion" could create love and freedom in a world palpably poisoned by mainstream monotheisms.

But alas, Neo-Paganism embodied its own lies and delusions. And before long, creative metaphor and joyful pretend-play became a gospel to many in these new religious groups. Often with dire consequences.

Arielle Finberg will describe her twisty journey through the very real and relevant labyrinth of monism, duotheism, polytheism, ancestor worship and nature spirits. Bring your questions! If you wonder what modern witches really are, why self-styled Druids chill out at Stonehenge, and how & why modern European Nationalism adopted a religious racism drawn from wiccanism, this is a chance to ask -- because Arielle has seen it all.